The Australian government announced plans to make anti-smoking laws the toughest in the world with one of them forced the big tobacco companies use a plain green color packs for their products, rather than the threat of the lawsuit industry. Minister for Health and Aging affairs Nicola Roxon said on Thursday that if the bill was, the soon-to enter parliament, passed, then the thousands of deaths due to tobacco, which suck up every year 31.5 billion Australian dollars (1 dollar = Rp8.900 Australia ) will be reduced.
"Regulation of the green plain packaging of cigarettes that this is the first time in the world and cause a strong message that the glamorous side was missing. Cigarettes packs will now show only the deaths and illnesses caused by smoking activity," said Roxon told reporters.
Although smoking rates decline, the market for tobacco in Australia made a 9.98 billion Australian dollars in 2009, up from the previous year which only 8.3 billion dollars. Approximately 22 million putung cigarettes sold in Australia each year.
Australian health authorities say that diseases caused by smoking causes 15,000 deaths each year, and smoking is a cause of illness and death that can be controlled to be prevented. Meanwhile, conservative opposition parties have not determined the attitudes of support or reject the draft law, which means that Labour's minority government must convince the independent and Green Party to begin to support the draft law.
"The government might spend millions of dollars in taxpayer money to pay legal fees to defend their decision. Not to mention when was fined to pay billions of dollars the tobacco industry because it violates their intellectual property," said BATA spokesman Scott McIntyre in a statement.
New Zealand, Canada, the European Union, and Britain is considering implementing similar laws, and they monitor closely developments in Australia. Analysts believe the new laws being trialled in Australia and other countries could spread to other developing markets such as Brazil, Russia, and Indonesia so that the cigarette industry growth will be depressed.
Roxon also said that new legislation will restrict the tobacco industry logos, branding, color, and text ads that appear on cigarette packaging, with only allowing a terrible pictures on display in the trademarks and product names with text and color standards . Bottled green olives will be the color of cigarette packs because based on research that color will make the smokers are not too interested in smoking.
The Australian Government also plans to implement anti-smoking law in early 2012, with all tobacco products should begin obey the new regulations six months later. "In addition, warning of health problems will be renewed and increased from 30 to 75 percent at the front of cigarette packs, and 90 percent to the rear," Roxon said.
World Health Organization (WHO) in the Convention on Tobacco Control advised the relevant authorities to "consider implementing more stringent rules or if necessary, prohibit the use of logos, colors, branding or promotional information form."
Australia already has tough rules relating to tobacco advertising, which has been pressing the smoking rate of 30.5 percent of the population aged over 14 years in 1988 to 16.6 percent in 2007. Roxon itself targeted reduce smoking rates in Australia for under 10 percent in 2018.
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